![]() ![]() “It’s important they know who you are, especially in a company where we have a legendary founder and chairman,” Mr. But, he added, “I’m a little apprehensive.” I think he’s committed to hanging onto that culture,” said Charles Cerf, president of Transport Workers Union Local 555, which represents about 6,800 Southwest ground workers. He needs to lift revenue by $1.5 billion a year to offset rising fuel expenses. Kelly is also pulling on the big levers, fundamentally changing the airline’s business: raising fares, packing more people onto planes, and abandoning an egalitarian boarding policy for one that lets business travelers board and pick seats first. These, of course, amount to only small dials on the corporate control panel, intended to lighten the mood and put a little bounce in the step of the nearly 35,000 Southwest employees. Kelly strained, as it were, to fit the mold.Īnd what a mold: a startling amount of office hugging and kissing in lieu of handshakes elaborate practical jokes and on-the-premises beer drinking at headquarters, as long as it is after 5 p.m. Kelleher, now 76, channeled that, creating an us-against-them attitude that somehow made it seem fun to work harder than other airlines.Īnd to top it off he reveled publicly in his own love of drink and cigarettes, helping give Southwest a party image. Kelleher, developed a mighty chip on his shoulder in the 1970s, as other airlines tried to drive the upstart Southwest out of business. Some technology companies, young and profitable enough to indulge creative workers, remain offbeat playgrounds.īut few big employers are as quirky as Southwest. SOUTHWEST AIRLINES CEO GARY KELLY DRIVERSU.P.S., the big shipper, still promotes truck drivers and parcel sorters to the executive ranks. They say, in effect, “I know what’s right. Many new chief executives do not think twice before dispensing with company customs. cult,” said Edward Lawler, who directs the Center for Effective Organizations at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business. The resulting homogenization of workplaces is because of “the C.E.O. Indeed, as chief executives, owners and strategies shift rapidly at American companies, distinct corporate cultures the sense of history, the best and worst impulses of an organization are often swept aside. The episode last October revealed him as an unusual corporate chief these days, one trying to fit the mold of his company rather than trying to mold the company in his own image. Kelly was conforming to a culture that has helped make Southwest the only consistently profitable company in the domestic airline industry. Kelly could surprise the 2,400 workers at headquarters with his most outlandish Halloween outfit ever: Edna Turnblad, the bouffant mom from the musical “Hairspray.”Įven in drag, oddly, Mr. It had to be kept hush-hush, so that the 6-foot-3 Mr. And she added, grimacing, “The most awkward thing fitting your boss with prosthetic breasts.” “Some pretty embarrassing Web sites we had to sort through,” Ms. ![]() She pitched in last year when he was too busy to shop for the size 14 women’s high heels he had been wanting. His administrative assistant, Gillian Kelley, has seen it. Kelly, 52, has risen from financial controller to chief executive and has loosened up about what he wears to work. ![]() “I had my normal suit in the car just in case.” (No joke just Hawaiian shorts day.) “I thought everybody was playing a joke on me,” he said. Kelly sat in his car in the headquarters parking lot one morning, wearing Hawaiian shorts and a polo shirt as he had been instructed. His first week at Southwest, in 1986, Mr. to one of Corporate America’s most colorful bosses. Kelly, who transformed himself from a buttoned-down C.P.A. DALLAS Southwest Airlines, with a raucous corporate culture that is the exception in the grim airline industry, stands to look even wilder as some of its big competitors contemplate mergers that would only further muddy their corporate identities.įor proof that Southwest is sticking with its oddball ways, look no further than its chief executive, Gary C. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |